Fishing lures are well known in the art for use as artificial "bait" to lure fish to the hook for catching the fish. Fishing lures of many types are available to the art.
Some exemplary prior art references are listed below:
______________________________________ Patent No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 3,490,165 Thomassin 01/20/70 3,735,518 Klein et al 05/29/73 ______________________________________
Reference is also had to Australian patent application No. 36665/95 filed Nov. 7, 1995 entitled "Improvements to Fishing Lures" of Blockridge Pty. Ltd. and Australian provisional patent application No. PM9273 filed Nov. 7, 1994, upon which the former claimed priority.
Generally a lure includes a main, exterior body portion, which is of the general shape of a bait fish or other marine animal desired to attract other fish. The main body may be colored or treated in such a way as to attract fish and usually incorporates one or more eyelets or the like to which the fishing line and fishing hook(s) may be attached. The lure typically includes at its leading, lower end a "bib" which assists in the lure reaching a desired submerged level or water depth. The bib also contributes to the over-all movement or "swim" of the lure to attract the game fish.
The Australian Blockridge application noted above described a fishing lure including a body portion having substantially the configuration of the body of a fish or other marine animal, with the body portion being formed of a flexible or pliable material and having a plurality of slots in opposite sides, with the slots defining therebetween respective sections of the body portion, the section being capable of deflection to opposite sides upon movement of the lure through water. The slots in opposite sides of the body portion defined respective aligned thin web sections extending centrally along the body portion. The thin web sections were aligned with what would be the normal backbone of a fish. The thin web sections, in effect, acted as "hinges" between the body sections, and the slots were of such a width that allowed hinged movement of one section relative to the other, adjacent section(s).
The body portion was provided with a recess at the leading or head end thereof, for receipt of a bib carrying insert. The insert also included means for retaining a hook and means for connection of the insert and thus the body portion to a fishing line or the like. Such means were in the form of a clip releasibly received by the insert, which was weighted. As an alternative, the insert was molded with the head or leading end of the lure, with the bib releasibly engaged with the insert.
The body portion was formed of a flexible plastics material, such as plasticized, poly-vinyl-chloride (PVC) or silicon formed by injection molding. The bib was formed of plastics, suitably transparent plastics such as polycarbonate.
Thus, prior art lures typically included a separable bib and separate insert structure for providing an inter-connection between the fishing line and the body of the lure into which the insert is located, as well as the hook to which it was directly connected. The insert of the prior art thus provided a strong interconnection between the line connector and the hook connector, while also serving, in part, as an internal "skeleton" for the lure body, which typically is molded of softer or weaker material, which, in turn, is molded or shaped to simulate the body of a desirable "bait."
Exemplary problems of the prior bib structure, particularly the "Blockridge" lure, which in its commercial embodiment included a stainless steel plate with an inserted or pushed on bib, were that the bib was not stable, and broke or fell out too easily or was too easily bent. Additionally, such a lure was not stable when pulled through the water, and, also, some fishermen did not like having a metal plate for the attachment of the line and hook(s).
In a first test attempt in early 1997 at improving the prior bib structure to overcome these problems, a plastic bib structure was used with screw hook eyes installed to which was attached the fishing line and hooks. However, problems with this approach included too high manufacturing costs and too much time required to individually "tune" the lure.
"Tuning" refers to the bending of the basic elements of the lure, for example, the inter-connecting parts of the bib with respect to the line connection and/or the hook connection, relative to one another, so that the lure travels in a desired direction, for example, a relatively straight line. Some minor tuning is expected for most, if not all, lures and typically is done by the fisherman. However, the screw eye inter-connections made the lure very unpredictable and unstable.
The present invention successfully overcomes all of the foregoing prior problems.
GENERAL SUMMARY DISCUSSION OF INVENTION
Hence, the present invention provides a novel fishing lure and bib therefor which overcomes the prior art bib, hook/line attachment and lure problems noted above.
In the present invention the bib and associated elements or members for the fishing lure body were redesigned to include in the internal insert mold both the downwardly extending bib and the line tie and hook attachment eyelets, preferably in the form of wire forms, which bib design was further improved by tapering the bib around its sides to a small radius or radii on its peripheral edges, producing preferably slanted side edges effectively or relatively going down to a point or line edge area about the bib periphery, in contrast to the flat, full-thickness, squared edges of the prior art bibs. These approaches produce a lure that, for the most part, does not require any (or very little) individual tuning.
Additional improvements includes a new eyelet design which eliminates the possibility of getting the open end of the previous eye to attach the line or hook. This further improvements makes the connection operation virtually "fool proof."
A further, optional improvement is the addition of a strengthening rib around the edge of the insert member.
In manufacturing the lure of the present invention, the initial steps include in the preferred embodiment the insert molding of, for example, "omega" type metal inserts or wire forms in thermoplastic material for the eyelets, producing an interim, relatively rigid, internal member, including both the insert and integrally formed and molded bib, which rigid internal member is then subsequently insert molded into, for example, a thermoset plastisol material, or, for further example, a low durometer, thermoplastic elastomer material, producing the relatively soft, outer or exterior lure body, with the downwardly extending bib and the eyelets extending outside of the exterior lure body.
It is believed that the present invention is the first to insert mold hook and tie eyes in, for example, a hard thermoplastic, producing a combined, integrated insert and bib with integrated eyelets, and then to insert mold this improved insert/bib/eyelet assembly into, for example, a very low durometer plastic for simulating the outer, soft body of the fishing lure.
As in known in the art, various colors and decoration can be added to the resin before molding the final lure, as is likewise done in many lures today.
If so desired, a series of same size lures having different sized bibs can be made for producing different depths of "swim" of the individual lures, along with a series of different size lures, e.g. two, three and four (2", 3" 4") inch lures.
These innovations are preferably, but not necessarily, incorporated into a lure with a "jointed" body, with its incorporated, integrated, bib, hook and towing system surrounded by a desirable soft body shape, which provides a "real, life-like" appearance as its "swims" through the water, providing, it is believed, the most realistic action and feel of any lure on the market.
The incorporated bib, hook and towing system of the present invention generally creates a similarity to hard body lures on the market today, but its life-like "swimming" action of the soft body lure of the preferred embodiment of the invention is so realistic that one can "swim" the lure of the invention besides a real bait fish and effectively not be able to tell the difference between the two, making the lure of the invention, it is believed, one of the most natural, artificial baits on the market today.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a lure which at least generally does not require individual "tuning" after manufacture, but does allow, if so desired, some adjustment in use to adapt the lure to provide various actions depending on the needed application of the lure.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved fishing lure and bib structure therefor which produces a very "life-like" swimming action.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a lure which over-comes the prior art problems noted above using a manufacturing methodology which preferably includes the initial step of insert molding metal inserts into thermoplastic material, which forms an integrated, rigid structure, and the subsequent step of insert molding the initial, rigid structure into preferably a soft body molded material, such as, for example, a thermoset plastisol material or a very low durometer type thermoplastic material.